The Role of Gene in Cardiovascular Diseases

Fifty years ago, cardiovascular genetics simply did not exist. Genetics was a nascent field of basic research, with little apparent relevance to cardiovascular science or any other medical subspecialty. Today, cardiovascular genetics is a discipline that fully integrates high-technology laboratory investigation and clinical medicine. From this hybrid have emerged discoveries that have precisely identified the cause of heretofore “idiopathic” disorders, provided fundamental insights into disease processes, and delineated subtypes in well-defined pathologies. Insights from these discoveries uproot traditional anatomic classifications of disease and integrate cell physiology and molecular biochemistry into the study of pathology. For researchers, practitioners, and patients alike, cardiovascular genetics is having a growing impact on the definition and diagnosis of disease, the explanation of prognosis, and the expansion of treatments. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading health problem, affecting over 80,000,000 individuals in the United States alone. CVD encompasses a broad range of disorders including diseases of the vasculature, the myocardium, the heart’s electrical circuit.